West Berkshire
Parent Carer Forum
Empower and enable your voices to be heard
West Berkshire Parent Carer Forum
Welcome to West Berks Parent Carer Forum!
We are a friendly group of parent carers who have children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities aged from 0-25 years.
We want to improve our local services, and by coming together as a collective, we can and do make changes. We love the video below and think the video below explains it perfectly. We are always happy for more people to join us, there’s no charge to join, we are completely free, and we are a relaxed fun group. So if you would like to be part of friendly bunch of people who would like to see SEND changes in West Berkshire, we would love to have you 
As a Forum we can support and train parent carers to enable them to have their voices and opinions count, and to be involved with shaping services alongside the professionals who provide health, education, adult and social services.
Our shared mission is to improve and enhance the experiences and opportunities of children and young people with additional needs, by enabling parents and carers to be heard, and to be at the heart of decisions about development and delivery of services in West Berkshire.
The forum represent the views of the collective community and not an individual voice, we are unable to advocate for individual families, but can signpost to specialist services.
Updates on Facebook
HI All,
Unfortunately the West Berks Council's Facebook Live streaming which was taking place at the SEND Consultation tomorrow night is unable to take place. If you have any questions for the consultation, please send them to the following email address.
Jaime.johnson@westberks.gov.uk
Please note, no detailed correspondence will be able to take place, but brief answers to the questions can be made.
Because of a very high volume of last minute requests for postponement, withdrawal, concedes and consent orders, the Tribunal’s resources, both human and administrative, are not being put to their most effective use. Last-minute cancellations mean that on occasions, the Tribunal has had to cancel other appeal hearings, where in fact, the Judicial Office Holders could have been released to cover those cases, if the parties had addressed their positions and identified at an earlier date that they did not require the hearing date.
What are we changing
As of 20 June 2018, the Tribunal will pilot a trial period when all requests for a postponement, withdrawal, concede or a consent order must be received a clear 48 hours before the scheduled hearing. If they are received less than 48 hours before the hearing, the request will not be accepted (unless the circumstances are exceptional) and the parties will be required to attend the scheduled hearing and make the request to the Tribunal panel.
Therefore, if your appeal was scheduled for a Thursday and you ask for a Consent Order on the Tuesday, you will be required to attend the hearing. However, if the request is received on the Monday, this will be processed by the administrative staff in the office.
If your request is received within 48 hours of the scheduled day of hearing, the administrative team in Darlington will aim to return your request and inform you to attend the hearing. If you do not receive a response from the Tribunal you are to proceed to the hearing and make your application on the day.
Are there any exceptions?
The case directions issued on registration of the appeal state that the Tribunal will not accept postponements, withdrawals, concedes or consent orders within 5 working days of the hearing. The current trial is providing more time to the parties to discuss, but will be imposed strictly. The only exceptions will be situations arising which are beyond the control of the parties and which will require judicial consideration e.g. personal bereavement.
The Tribunal always encourages parties to discuss the issues throughout the lifetime of the appeal and to continue negotiations from the outset of the appeal being registered with the Tribunal.
The Tribunal will review this process at the end of August and feedback at the User Groups in September 2018.
The consultations begin tomorrow with the first ones being in Newbury at The Phoenix Resource Centre Newbury. The consultations are for you, for you to be able to give your views and have your say on how SEND in West Berkshire going forward can be.
Please come along, there has not been much uptake so, and your views are so important to ensure the provisions we want for our children are available and are being made.
. There are two sessions one in the morning, and one in the evening.
The consultation is now your chance to give your views which are incredibly important about how the Draft Strategy and SEND Provision in West Berkshire can look going forward.
If you are unable to come to the consultations you can still fill in the SEN survey by clicking on link at the bottom of the post.
www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SENDStrategy2018
We look forward to seeing you either at the Newbury or Calcot Consultations.
Phoenix Resource Center - Monday 21st June 9.30am - 11.30am or 7.00pm - 9.00pm
Best Western Hotel, Calcot - Monday 25th June 9.30am -11.30am or 7.00pm -9.00pm..
To book on one of the above consultations please go to www.eventbrite.co.uk, and search for SEND Strategy Consultation. You will be then be able to book the time and date suitable for you.
Draft Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Strategy 2018 - 2023 Survey
surveymonkey.co.uk
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